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Of ships of doom and icebergs: early perspectives on the global hazardous waste trade
Published in Zsuzsa Gille, Josh Lepawsky, The Routledge Handbook of Waste Studies, 2021
The global waste trade has been under scrutiny for decades. However, the early work failed by not looking directly at global scrap trades during that time frame, the existence of recycling as well as disposal, and of demand in recipient communities. Perhaps that is in part a function of the types of wastes we focused on, and which the Basel Convention focused on. These original hazardous wastes—the barrels of sludge, piles of incinerator ash, and so on—have been replaced in the public eye by consumer-driven discards—used electronics, post-consumer plastic and paper packaging materials, cars, clothes, and other goods all shipped across borders, often in defiance of the spirit and sometimes the letter of the Basel Convention.
A Global Outlook on the Implementation of the Basel Convention and the Transboundary Movement of E-waste
Published in Abhijit Das, Biswajit Debnath, Potluri Anil Chowdary, Siddhartha Bhattacharyya, Paradigm Shift in E-waste Management, 2022
Florin-Constantin Mihai*, Maria Grazia Gnoni, Christia Meidiana, Petra Schneider, Chukwunonye Ezeah, Valerio Elia
E-waste is an increasingly growing global problem because a significant part of e-waste produced worldwide is reported to be recycled by the unregulated activities of the informal sector, mostly in developing countries, resulting in significant negative impacts in terms of human health and the environment (Ezeah et al., 2013). International exports of e-waste occur as part of a wider global waste trade that has been described as indicative of global inequalities and the most glaring evidence of overconsumption in the twenty-first century (Schmidt, 2006).
Toxic transmogrification
Published in Fiona Allon, Ruth Barcan, Karma Eddison-Cogan, The Temporalities of Waste, 2020
Since they are made from the amount of toxic waste created by the manufacture of a number of electronic goods, the Rare Earthenware vases can be most usefully connected to the concerns taken up in e-waste art, even though pre-consumer mining waste is not generally included in traditional definitions of e-waste. Standard definitions of e-waste refer only to post-consumer discards—essentially anything with an electrical plug—and increasingly to information and communications technologies. Thus, most e-waste artists use this readily accessible material in their work. This very pragmatic decision made by artists has consequences for our misunderstandings of waste in general, and e-waste in particular. Similarly, most discourses about electronics and waste focus on discarded post-consumer electronics, often with a focus on narratives of dumping in poor countries and devastation of the land (Minter 2019). While toxic exposure is a major concern, the reality is that the global trade in e-waste is better understood as a global recycling and refurbishment industry entered into willingly by entrepreneurs in poor communities, rather than one of dumping by rich to poor countries (Lepawsky 2018, 4). Another crucial part of the global waste trade is that the most egregious examples of waste, including volume and toxicity, are a result of industry not consumers (MacBride 2012, 4–5). The contexts of both e-waste art and the global e-waste trade are important in order to fully comprehend the intervention being made by the Rare Earthenware vases. The project deals with pre-consumer mine tailings—a form of industrial waste that rarely makes it into waste art or other discourses of waste. What the Rare Earthenware vases do is use the cultural capital of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain, a symbol of taste and wealth, and bring it into conversation with the global waste trade.
The application of blockchain technology in the recycling chain: a state-of-the-art literature review and conceptual framework
Published in International Journal of Production Research, 2022
Shenghao Xie, Yu Gong, Martin Kunc, Zongguo Wen, Steve Brown
Moreover, waste tracking exacerbates accountability issues, particularly when wastes are sorted and crushed into smaller components (Taylor, Steenmans, and Steenmans 2020). After transporting waste products to recycling centres, the relevant information is missing as manufacturers usually have no control over the whole recycling chain, and then product information is opaque to consumers (Hrouga, Sbihi, and Chavallard 2022). Ultimately, recycling chain members can shirk their responsibilities. More recently, the global waste trade was dramatically changed after China banned the import of plastic waste. As a result, developed countries have to find alternative destinations to export their waste or dispose of it themselves, which has also given rise to illegal waste dumping in other countries (Wen et al. 2021).